Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful.

Niccolo Machiavelli(The Prince, 1513)

Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion.

Niccolo Machiavelli(The Prince, 1513)

Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.

Niccolo Machiavelli(Discourses on Livy - Third Book: Chapter 9, 1513)

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

Niccolo Machiavelli(The Prince - Chapter 6, 1513)

Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.

Niccolo Machiavelli(The Prince - Chapter 26, 1513)

It is not titles that make men illustrious, but men who make titles illustrious.Variant:
It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.

There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, and the third is useless.

Men have imagined republics and principalities that never really existed at all. Yet the way men live is so far removed from the way they ought to live that anyone who abandons what is for what should be pursues his downfall rather than his preservation; for a man who strives after goodness in all his acts is sure to come to ruin, since there are so many men who are not good.

Niccolo Machiavelli(The Prince - Chapter 15, 1513)

Never do any enemy a small injury for they are like a snake which is half beaten and it will strike back the first chance it gets.

Niccolo Machiavelli(The Prince - Chapter 3, 1513)

So in all human affairs one notices, if one examines them closely, that it is impossible to remove one inconvenience without another emerging.

Whenever men are not obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition; which is so powerful in human breasts, that it never leaves them no matter to what rank they rise. The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it.

Niccolo Machiavelli(Discourses on Livy, 1517)

The people as a body are courageous, but individually they are cowardly and feeble.